How will I manage my masters? #Projectgoals

I promise I’m going to start writing about what I’m doing with my project but today I’m going to outline a few goals and deadlines for my project. I’m also going to attempt to establish a format for my blogs posts, so someone reading this post can know what to expect from following my project updates!

I’m doing work, honestly!

For my project update log entries I want to establish a few things that will be present in most if not all of my entries: A rambling introduction from my inner monologue, Some actually useful content, links to my previous entries and something completely unrelated that I feel is worth sharing (whether that is a song, video, joke etc). Hopefully this will make my blogs informative and entertaining, with a reason to check back every week or so!

Proposed Project Timeline

Onto the second reason I am making this post, a time outline of my project and how I think it is going to work. There are a few major sections that I will have to complete, I’m not fully sure on how my project is going to take shape, this is currently my most educated guess!

Some of these sections I can’t really add too yet, I will be updating this section as and when I know more!

Literature Review

This section is the only one where I have a rigid deadline and have to be ontop of my workflow. My lit review has to be conducted as part of the coursework requirements for my course (we are currently in the summer/final term). This will be the first section finished but I imagine the work done for this segment will complement my work in the ‘preliminary research’ section. I will be starting this section second (this will be apparent in the next paragraph and also the next blog) because I have a few questions to ask before I start getting stuck into detailed source selection & analysis. This part of my project will hopefully give me a solid foundation of knowledge (supported by text) to start effectively designing my project workshop. I’m sure I could bash my project script out in a few weeks without conducting a lit review or doing much planning but that would be missing the point of a masters thesis. The questions I am able to answer with my reading will help me optimize my project and ensure that my project is well informed, this will help me more objectively assess whether my project will be successful or not!

Predicted completion date: (TBA! – I’ll know this coming wednesday)

Preliminary Research

This will run alongside and past my literature review. I need to answer a few questions, such as what can actually be taught in 2 hours? I could prepare the bible of iOS programming, but that would likely be WAY too much for 2 hours and wouldn’t go in. Alternatively I could produce ‘babies first app’ and move too slowly for everyone. I will attempt to answer these questions early on as they will help focus my efforts in the main project.

Predicted completion date: Early June

Building the workshop

Now this section should not take a huge amount of time. The challenge in this project is in preparation, not execution. I will need to produce a lab script and a few practical examples of the concepts outlined in the scripts. This step will probably be the shortest part of my whole project spanning only a few weeks.

Predicted completion date: End of June

User Testing

Starting this section depends on when I finish the project. Once I have built my workshop I will get some of my peers into the lab for a demo session. I will run them through the session, get them to play the role of fresh AMT students in their first weeks of uni. After the session everyone will take a survey so I can get some meaningful feedback on the session so I know what does/doesn’t work. I am likely to run the session again after processing the feedback but this session will depend on how I retest the session. If feedback is good I might trial it on actual beginners, if it isn’t I will use my course mates.

Predicted completion date: Early/Mid July

Project Revisions

Depending on the feedback from user testing will decide how long I spend doing revisions to my project. I’m likely to run user testing but at this point that is a “cross that bridge when we get to it” goal, I can’t actually plan and organize that at this time. At this point in the project I will have completed and organised all of my practical work!

Predicted completion date: Mid/Late July

Final Write Up!

This section will likely be the most stressful and the hardest to quantify. At this point I will have done my practical work, user tests etc. I will likely have to crunch plenty of data, explain the choices I made during the project with support from my readings. At some point it would probably be a smart idea to get the whole document professionally proof read!

An old uni friend once set himself a late july/early august deadline for his thesis, he finished it 2 days before the deadline. My deadlines may or may not be moved back but that doesn’t matter. Hopefully I can get the write up finished before September so I have at least a week for proof reads and some reflections.